National Football League

Jerry Jones on why he should remain Cowboys GM: 'Nobody [else] can do it'

Published Aug. 26, 2024 1:00 p.m. ET

Jerry Jones has owned the Dallas Cowboys since 1989. During that time, he has also taken the role of team president and general manager, leading the team's football and non-football operations in a hands-on manner that the vast majority of his NFL owner peers past and present have usually delegated.

Jones' status as Cowboys GM has come under increased scrutiny in recent months as the team stares down contract extension negotiations with its three best players — quarterback Dak Prescott, wide receiver CeeDee Lamb and linebacker/defensive end Micah Parsons.

The Cowboys are currently negotiating with Lamb, as the star wideout has held out of offseason workouts and training camp in anticipation of a new deal after a career year in 2023. Prescott is set to play under the final year of his contract in 2024 and could be a free agent next spring. Parsons has two more seasons on his rookie deal but became extension-eligible this past spring.

But the deluge of big contract negotiations — coupled with the reality that the Cowboys have famously not reached the NFC Championship Game since winning the last of their three Super Bowls under Jones in 1996 — is not giving the 81-year-old Jones any reason to reevaluate whether he should continue serving as GM, he recently told DLLS Sports.

"I've done it all," Jones said. "So I have an ordinate amount of confidence that f---, if anybody can figure out how to get this s--- done, I can figure out how to get it done. I've been there every which way from Sunday, and busted my a-- a bunch. There's nobody living that's out cutting and shooting that can't give you a bunch of times they busted their a--. So hell no, there's nobody that could f---ing come in here and do all the contracts … and be a GM any better than I can.

"Plus, I'm where the buck stops. When it f---s up, I got to cover it. … There's nobody [else] that can do it."

Jones also said he remains in good physical and mental health as he enters his 35th season running the Cowboys and says he's a "long way" from being too feeble to keep his current titles.

"I f---ing have had hundreds of [bad days]," Jones added. "I'm emotional about it sometimes. Well, running this thing, that's who I want to make the last call. Now, when I can't f---ing think, when I'm old and I can't even do it… The reason I don't let somebody else be the GM is because I don't have anybody that I will let do it to actually do it right. And they're gonna have to come to me because I know where it is that you're going to pay for it."

Jones also remains arguably the most influential among the NFL's 32 team owners, and said he often reminds his peers about when he started his tenure as a team owner when the league was in a much more dire financial state.

"I say, ‘Guys, y'all never seen a meeting when they had no money, right?'," Jones said. "‘We could have a meeting when there wasn't any money.' And I said, ‘Can any of you imagine not enough money coming through the doors to pay the overhead?' I said, ‘When I walked in this nobody had enough money coming in.'"

That said, Jones told DLLS he does trust his children — Charlotte, Stephen and Jerry Jr. — to run the team if "I get hit by a car tonight", but as long as he remains active, he will remain in charge of the Cowboys.

"If I didn't give a s---, if this wasn't fun for me to do or interesting for me to do, whatever you want to call [it] … the facts are [that] I really would rather be f---ing around like this," Jones said. "The point is I love this."

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